It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint. DLC strategy will be planned long in advance, way before the release of the game, and is undoubtedly factored in to the projected revenue stream of the game's life cycle. It's hardly a stretch to imagine a list of planned game content being sub-divided into carefully-balanced 'ships with the game' and 'released as DLC' categories. It's easy money for the developers, so why not? I'm not knocking it. It's a capitalist society and studios need to make good money if we want them to make good games.
This is common sense, of course DLC is planned ahead, everything is planned before its creation.
Trying to imply that they know exactly what content is locked for DLC or the actually game at launch is just completely untrue. We know from past interviews and articles that cars in Forza are sometimes bumped due to licensing issues even though they were ready in time for the games launch; some of those cars are never released at all.
Just don't try to tell me they represent 'value' compared to what your original 60 bucks gets you.
It's not about the representative value of the original 60 dollars spent on the game. As said earlier in the thread, DLC is priced higher in comparative content because it does sell nearly as much as the original title does. Your comparing a DLC pack that might sell 100,000~ copies in its lifetime to a game that will sell millions in its lifetime.
And you don't really believe that everything that is ready when the disc goes gold actually gets bunt onto the disc, do you? Apart from dealer-specific preorder and VIP bonuses (a whole other bitter pill to swallow),
Yes, except for content that is held up because of licensing issues all the content built in time to be put onto the disc... is put on the disc.
then how the hell do you explain the overtly abhorrent practise of day-one DLC? It's like some devs don't even try to hide it any more. I've no doubt some DLC is stuff that genuinely wasn't ready for release (either physically, or due to unresolved licenses etc), and other DLC is made entirely from scratch post-release, but in the case of day-one DLC at least wait a few fucking weeks so we can
pretend we're not getting shafted..!
Really? Something this simple?
You do realize that a game is complete a month or more before launch right? During that month the developer can no longer change what ships on the disc as the code is already being sent out for preloading and to be stamped on discs. Instead of the studio coming to a stand still they instead focus on that month to fix bugs for a day one patch and have other parts of the studio work on content such as DLC.
It takes Turn 10 a month to make a car pack.... So yes it makes sense that day one DLC is possible without the content existing in time to make it on the final disc.
As for the free track DLC in FM5, that was certainly a pleasant surprise, but there might well have been an outcry if extra tracks were hidden behind a paywall considering the meagre number of locations the game shipped with. As a goodwill gesture the extra tracks were universally appreciated, but there would have been valid economic considerations behind how they were released, just like there are valid economic considerations behind every business decision ever made, ever. Large corporations don't give to charity because they want to be nice, after all. Again, I'm not knocking the practise, but we sometimes need to look at these things with eyes wide open and not just blind fawning innocence.
You're right... they don't have to give charity.... but they did.
It's hypocritically to criticize them charging for content while unwilling to praise them for releasing content for free.
They didn't have to do anything and in the end releasing those tracks for free did more to hurt them financially then it did to help.
Bottom-line those tracks were also released free because they've learned that charging for tracks previously only fractured their community.
The high desirability of those cars is hardly a coincidence. I've bought plenty of car DLC in many racing games, but it's always been behind slightly gritted teeth based on the cost, knowing the game's actually cost me a lot more than I thought it would. There's obviously a delicate balance with the pricing, which will be carefully calculated based on target sales. However, it always seems that the prices are set to relatively high to tempt in the hardcore players rather than low enough so that everybody buys. I'm sure the calculations aren't as simple as halve the price and double the sales, though.
If you grit your teeth because you feel like you're being forced to buy DLC.... don't buy it.
The price is set at a point where they feel like they can receive enough sales to justify the creation of the DLC.
Exceptions and anomalies do exist though, such as the Porsche DLC in FM4 where you know MS had to grease EA's palm for the privilege, so a significant contribution from consumers is to be expected and perfectly justifiable.
This assumes they are prepared separately as post-release DLC rather than being cherry-picked from the main game as a means to generate revenue (and again, this is perfectly-acceptable supply & demand business practise, so please don't think I'm criticising).
I will never believe that they purposely cherry-pick cars that they would put in the game in order to entice people to buy DLC.
There are a huge amount of desirable cars in the world and cherry-picking specific ones is not needed.
The fact that you see so many people express their disappointment in car packs shows this to be far from the truth.
The free cars are there so that the paid models are also installed for multiplayer, aren't they?
TL,DR: I generally think car DLC is vastly overpriced compared to the cost & content of the retail game, but business is business and if consumers are willing to pay it then studios will continue to charge it. I disagree with the tactical release of some DLC but understand that studios need to make money to make better games.
Again, like we've said multiple times... DLC is always going to be more expensive in comparative content, this is purely because it will not sell as much as the main title will.
In games such as Forza/GT, track DLC for free should be a given fact. Not some "gesture of goodwill" by developers.
The Car DLC pricing is at times simply ridiculous, and season passes usually get you like 5$/5€ cheaper than just individually buying everything.
Anyways, as long as all release and post-release tracks are free to all players, you effectively reduce playerbase fragmentation and keep everyone happier. It just how it is. Cars don't create such a big fragmentation than paywalled tracks would..
Free track DLC being free as a "given fact" is most definitely not true with racing titles.
Stopping community fragmentation is becoming more obvious to publishers and developers but track DLC is not universally free.
